A husband, a dad, a data scientist, and now a Jeopardy! champion. Tristan Williams is on his way to becoming a super champion after securing nine wins.
Williams, originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, has won nine games and a total of $188,501, as of May 18. He has guaranteed himself a spot in an upcoming Tournament of Champions and is on his way to becoming a super champion, which means winning at least 10 games.
Fans have compared the champion to Woody from Toy Story, but what else is there to know about him?
Tune into Jeopardy! on May 19 to see if he wins his tenth game. Here are eight things to know about Tristan Williams.
Early Life
Tristan Williams was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. There, he attended Lincoln Southeast High School, where he participated in the Science Olympiad and math teams. He always tries to go back to visit family and attend a Huskers game.
“It was a good place, especially for people into a bunch of different things,” he said. “I had so many academic opportunities there, it definitely helped and got me into so many different things,” Williams told 1011 Now.
“The thing that I tell people is, I’m a Nebraskan, I’m a Husker football fan, huge fan, I want to go on a Tommie Frazier run, not a Jamie Ding run, so we’re going to see if that works out,” he said.
College Life
While Williams was born and raised in Nebraska, he now lives in New York with his family. He also went to college in California, according to his LinkedIn. The Jeopardy! champion attended Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, for his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Mathematics. There, Williams tutored students in microeconomics.
He then went to the University of California, Berkeley, for his Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, where he graduated in 2014.
A Data Scientist for Over a Decade
Williams had internships before becoming a data scientist. A data scientist “uses data to understand and explain the phenomena around them, and help organizations make better decisions,” according to Coursera.
Since 2014, he has had a job in that field. From 2014 to June 2017, he worked at various companies in San Francisco, California. Then, in June 2017, Williams moved to New York for a job at CityBlock Health. He currently works for Clover Health, where he was a Senior Data Scientist and recently got promoted to Stadd Data Scientist.
His Relationship Status
Williams is married. His wife is called Michelle. He proposed to her in NYC’s Central Park. They recently had their first child together.
Williams was afraid his baby would be born while on the show
The data scientist almost didn’t make it onto the game show because his wife was due very close to when he had his callback, but luckily, she had their baby girl, Lucy, before he filmed his shows. She was born on July 29.
“We were very afraid that it was actually going to happen where I would finally get the call right as we had the baby, so we had like a true newborn, and I’d be like stumbling in there on two hours of sleep,” the game show contestant told 1011 Now.
“But thankfully, we made it a few months past that point.”
Williams does celebrity impressions
In 2023, Williams did a standup show called “Tristan: as told by celebrities,” where he did impressions of numerous celebrities, including Sean Connery, Jerry Seinfeld, Robert De Niro, and more.
He is a runner
During his sixth game, Williams revealed that he proposed to his wife while they were on a run. It was the first route they ran together. The champion has shared photos of himself running in races on Instagram. The group he is in is called the New York Harriers.
His Winning Plans
During his fifth game, Williams revealed what he plans to do with the money he has won from being on Jeopardy!He shared that his wife found out that when the tennis courts aren’t being used for the U.S. Open, every day people can rent them out for cheap.
“What I want to do, because I got every year, is rent a court with my friends, put on a tournament, and call it the Way to the U.S. Open,” he said.
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